1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the generation of update packages for software and firmware, and, more specifically, to the techniques employed in generating compact and efficient update packages that can be used to upgrade software/firmware from one version to another.
2. Background of the Art
Electronic devices, such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs), often contain firmware and application software either provided by the manufacturer of the electronic devices, by telecommunication carriers, or by third parties. The firmware and application software often contain software bugs. New versions of the firmware and software are periodically released to fix the bugs or to introduce new features, or both. There is a fundamental problem in providing access to new releases of firmware and software. The electronic devices are often constrained in terms of resources, such as available memory. Attempts to upgrade firmware or software by end-users often result in making the device, or some features of the device inoperable. Specifically, changing firmware in electronic devices requires a great deal of caution as unsuccessful attempts may make the device inoperable. Also, attempts to upgrade firmware and/or software in constrained devices may be hampered by limited user interaction capabilities and slow communication speeds on these devices. In addition, determination of the version of firmware or software that may currently be executed on the electronic devices may not be an easy task, especially if such determination must be made with minimal end-user interaction.
When an electronic device manufacturer/supplier wants to upgrade an electronic device user's executable applications, a binary difference file may be distributed from the supplier to the user. The user may then update the executable image with that difference file. Often, the changes required for the upgrade may be small, however, the binary difference file may be very large, and that may cause problems during the upgrading process.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art through comparison of such systems with the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.